Wind farms and hurricanes don’t mix – d’oh!

Gone with the wind? Hurricanes could destroy the offshore wind farms the US is planning to build in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

The US Department of Energy set a goal for the country to generate 20 per cent of its electricity from wind by 2030. One-sixth is to come from shallow offshore turbines that sit in the path of hurricanes.

Talk about a “d’oh” moment.

Stephen Rose and colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, modelled the risk hurricanes might pose to turbines at four proposed wind farm sites. They found that nearly half of the planned turbines are likely to be destroyed over the 20-year life of the farms. Turbines shut down in high winds, but hurricane-force winds can topple them.

You don’t say. Each wind farm costs about $175 million.

Safe, reliable and eco-friendly – well except for the birds they regularly grind up. But hey, in the ocean those birds drop into the sea and no one ever sees them. They provide chum for the fish (if a bird gets chopped up in the ocean and no one sees it does it make a sound?).

That’s good … right? No? I’m confused. PETA, where are you?

Reading the obvious and understanding that they’re going to do this anyway (somewhere in this you, Mr and Mrs. Taxpayer, are paying a hefty chunk of the bill and taking most of the risk) makes you realize how, well, “not so bright” many of those who “lead” us are or how much they really don’t care about the outcome of what they do if it satisfies some voting constituency. As long as they have access to your tax dollars or borrowed dollars with little or no accountability, this sort of nonsense will continue unabated.

@Neo_ I think we need to explore the “pigs on zip-lines with whirly-gigs” potential for power generation. The lil’ guy on the commercial seems to be enjoying himself, and that HAS to lead to happy bacon…as an added benefit…!

I concede that the towers could fall, but the more likely event is broken blades. I have examined the towers and the blades as they were being hauled to the site just because i wanted to see for myself and trust official reports as much as the average rattle snake. Ocean installation and maintenance costs are much higher and require special training that linemen just do not have, again this is informed opinion, i worked for a major california electric utility for over 5 years.

They’ll beef the puppies up so they can survive a force-5! So what if that jacks the price up 20 or 30 times! And leaves us with structures that, after 30 years, we’ll have to retire using small thermonuclear devices.

Maybe squatters will be able to turn them into little countries like that former radar platform in the UK that became “Sealand”.

This has nothing but the words “hilariously expensive, wasteful, useless, outrageously priced boondoggle” written all over it.